Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, - The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 'Neath billowing [clouds]1 that scatter and amass. All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge. 'Tis visible silence, still as the hour glass. Deep in the sunsearched growths the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: - So this winged hour is dropt to us from above. Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour When twofold silence was the song of love.
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Vaughan Williams: "skies"
Text Authorship:
- by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882), "Silent noon", appears in Ballads and Sonnets, first published 1881 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by George Frederick Boyle (1886 - 1948), "Your hands lie open", published 1939 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Henry Clough-Leighter (1874 - 1956), "Silent noon", published 1910 [ high voice, piano, and string quartet ], from The Day of Beauty [sung text not yet checked]
- by Edward Toner Cone (b. 1917), "Silent noon", published 1964 [ soprano and piano ], in the collection New Vistas of Song [sung text not yet checked]
- by Frederick Shepherd Converse (1871 - 1940), "Silent noon", published <<1940 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Henry Diercks (b. 1927), "Pastorale", 1957 [ SSA chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ernest Bristow Farrar (1885 - 1918), "Silent noon", op. 10 no. 2, published 1911 [ voice and piano ], from Vagabond Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Miriam Gideon (1906 - 1996), "Silent noon", 1983 [ medium voice and piano (or flute, oboe, vibraphone, violin, and violoncello) ], from Wing'd Hour, no. 2, New York, Peters [sung text not yet checked]
- by Robert William Manton (1894 - 1967), "The wing'd hour", 1954 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Charles Wilfred Orr (1893 - 1976), "Silent noon", 1921, published 1922 [ baritone and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Masters van Someren-Godfery (d. 1947), "Silent noon", published 1925 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), "Silent noon", 1903, published 1904 [ voice and piano ], from The House of Life, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Elinor Remick Warren (1900 - 1991), "Silent noon", published 1928 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Sílvia Pujalte Piñán) , "Migdia silenciós", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Tim Palmer) , copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Schweigender Mittag", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936
- GER German (Deutsch) (Sylvia Bendel Larcher) , copyright © 2021, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- POL Polish (Polski) (Jan Kasprowicz) , "Cisza południa", Warsaw, Księgarnia H. Antenberga, first published 1907
- SPA Spanish (Español) (Mercedes Vivas) , copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 111
Im hohen Rasen liegen deine Hände, Wie rosa Blüten lugen sie heraus. Du lächelst Ruhe. Wolken, ohne Ende, Schwimmen im Blau des hohen Kuppelbaus. Rundum ums Nest, drin wir so selig träumen, Stehn Silbersterne – Löwenzahn – im Gras. Das Farnkraut nickt und Schlehdornhecken säumen – ´s ist Schweigen, sichtbar, wie im Stundenglas. Im Sonnenbrodem flimmert die Libelle – Ein blauer Tropfen reiner Himmelswelle, Gleich dieser Stunde, die uns Gott beschied. Vor solchem Traum muß selbst der Tod verzagen. In Eintracht stumm laß unsre Herzen schlagen – Solch zweifach Schweigen wird zum Liebeslied.
Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.
Confirmed with Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten Übersetzt von Richard Flatter, Walter Krieg Verlag, Wien-Bad Bocklet-Zürich, 1954, 2nd edition (1st edition 1936), page 178.
Text Authorship:
- by Richard Flatter (1891 - 1960), "Schweigender Mittag", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in English by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882), "Silent noon", appears in Ballads and Sonnets, first published 1881
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- [ None yet in the database ]
Researcher for this page: Volkmar Henschel
This text was added to the website: 2021-02-25
Line count: 14
Word count: 93